December 2020
The ValleyCAST Art & Music Makers Festival in the past has been a one-day event at the plaza of the renovated Whitin Mill in Whitinsville.
"It was a fun day," said Cristi Collari, director of community outreach for ValleyCAST, the arts and culture arm of Open Sky Community Services.
ValleyCAST operates a theater, gallery and artist studios at Whitin Mill and its mission is to use the arts and the Whitin Mill’s cultural assets to build an inclusive community in Blackstone Valley in which the arts bring people with and without disabilities together.
"We closed down in March and haven't opened yet," Collari said of the effects of the pandemic.
But the first ever ValleyCAST Virtual Art & Music Makers Festival will be getting underway Dec. 29, and it is going to last for more than one day.
At noon every Tuesday and Thursday starting Dec. 29, the festival will air a video made by one of the participating artists or musicians on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Each video ranges from about 6 to 7 to 25 minutes long.
Some of the participants are autistic, one musician is blind, there's a husband and wife duo, and young artists and performers with Main IDEA from Main South in Worcester. It's all inclusive.
"We like to say artists of all abilities," Collari said, in the spirit of ValleyCAST.
Artists include: Beckwith Strings, Just Rosy, Dominic Killiany, Lindsey Epstein Pottery, Carolyn Letvin, Madeline Lord, Main IDEA Arts Center, Philip Marshall, Stephen Paulson, Saori Worcester, Jon Sarkin, Lisa Shea, Nicholas B. Swearer, Derrick TePaske, Sam Tomasiello, Andy Volpe and Zentangle.
The artists are printmakers, sculptors, painters, potters, metal smiths, jewelry makers and more.
"A lot of the artists are local artists that have had shows with us in the gallery. Some of them are new who have approached us and asked if they could be included, and we haven't found anyone we didn't want to include," Collari said.
Musicians include: Adrian Anantawan, Blackstone Valley Quartet, Main IDEA Arts Center students, Noé Socha, and The Promise Is Hope.
Musicians range from soloists, duos and a quartet.
Joy Rachelle Murrieta, executive director of Main IDEA, had approached Collari about taking part in the festival this year, and young musicians from Main IDEA will be featured in videos.
The festival would have taken place physically in the plaza again this year, "but of course we couldn't," Collari said.
But ValleyCAST wanted to put on a festival.
"Bands are suffering so much, we still wanted to pay them. Artists still wanted to let people know they're out there," Collari said.
Collari has organized the plaza festivals and now the virtual festival. "The virtual aspect, I'm not used to that. It's a challenging new world. It's a learning curve," she said.
The videos proved to be exciting. At the physical festival, artists in tents would do demonstrations. For the virtual festival some have videoed themselves making art. "It's fun," Collari said.
Several participants made more than one video for the festival. A couple of musicians made four 15-minute videos.
"Most of the artists also did their own videos. A few we went to their studios and videoed them. It's going to be a mish-mash of video technology, which I think is really cool. It's going to be really genuine and immediate. Everyone doing these candid shots, candid videos," Collari said.
The festival will shuffle all the videos up so that there's no set advance line-up. "We like that a lot. We thought, maybe it's better if they don't know who they are going to see."
Meanwhile, Collari said research had indicated that noon was the best time to air the videos for viewership.
Many of the artists and musicians are local but a few are from farther away.
Noé Socha is a Brooklyn-based guitar and harmonica player who won awards at Berklee College of Music. In 2017, he released the album "Blues and the World Beyond," which he recorded as one half of Likho Duo. His YouTube channel is called Blind Selfie.
Award-winning violinist Adrian Anantawan, who was born without a right hand, has been based in Boston. He submitted a 15-minute video to the festival. "I was just thrilled he would participate," Collari said.
Noé Socha is a Brooklyn-based guitar and harmonica player who won awards at Berklee College of Music. In 2017, he released the album "Blues and the World Beyond," which he recorded as one half of Likho Duo. His YouTube channel is called Blind Selfie.
Award-winning violinist Adrian Anantawan, who was born without a right hand, has been based in Boston. He submitted a 15-minute video to the festival. "I was just thrilled he would participate," Collari said.
Closer to home, The Promise Is Hope is the acclaimed Worcester wife and husband folk duo Ash and Eric L’Esperance.
Theater-goers might be familiar with ValleyCAST via the G.B. and Lexi Singh Performance Center at Whitin Mill, which has been the home of a number of theater groups, including Stepping Stone Community Theater, an inclusive theater company that was so successful there it moved to a larger venue.
"At one time we had nine theater groups using it," Collari said.
The question now is how many will there be post-pandemic.
"We're working on a strategic plan on how to get more theater groups. We've just been scrambling to keep ValleyCAST on the radar," Collari said. "Actors and theater groups are probably not working at all. Same with musicians. The performance space is going to be a lot harder to get up and running and back. The theater's going to take a while because you can't plan long-term right now. Are people going to be comfortable being in that space?"
The ValleyCAST Virtual Art & Music Makers Festival might help in keeping people aware of its work and goals over quite a long period of time. As was mentioned earlier, it is not a one-day event.
Collari said the plan is to air the videos Tuesdays and Thursdays "until we run out of videos."
That might be in April, or possibly longer.
The videos will then live on the ValleyCAST YouTube Channel indefinitely, enabling community members to go back and view videos they’ve missed, or watch their favorites again.
"The more people that watch and like and share, the more people will be tuning in," Collari said.
"We're trying to get some more social media presence for ValleyCAST in the community and educate people about what we do."
Collari said the more that people are exposed to art and performance by people with and without disabilities, the more they are enriched.
"It goes both ways. And it brings some joy and distraction in the times we're in right now. Art and music are joyful.
Visit https://www.openskycs.org/news-events/events/virtual-art-music-makers-festival for a full list of participating artists and musicians with links to their online presence.